Superlink Laserwave

Shockwave is one of many characters who had been overlooked in the TransFormers toy ranges following G1 and, technically, he wasn't really a TransFormer anyway - he was one of many third party transforming robots who was repurposed by Hasbro.

Strangely, Hasbro/Takara Tomy seemed to lose access to the name 'Shockwave' for several years, not to mention applying it, seemingly at random, to the character known as Tidal Wave in the west, leading to miscellaneous variations on the theme of Shock/Laser/Blast/Wave for any character fans might recognise as Ol' One Eye.

As another robot who originally turned into a gun - an enormous, purple laser gun, no less - but such alternate modes are very much out of fashion these days. Since Megatron moved on to being a tank, it's surely logical that someone like Shockwave, generally to be found with a honking great cannon on one arm, would follow suit... And so, we have Laserwave...

Revenge of the Fallen Preview: Soundwave

OK, I'm doing these in a screwy order. This, along with the slightly re-sculpted Deluxe Bumblebee, was among my first Revenge of the Fallen purchases but Prime and Sideswipe, while bought several weeks later, were far more interesting. Figure I'd better get this out of the way, though... and get to RotF Bumblebee whenever...

Soundwave has been on the cards since the first movie came out. The writers wanted to include him, but needed to figure out a way of working in the idea of 'ejecting' minions. Well... they've kind of come up with a solution... but, while this thing has a robot mode, rumour has it Soundwave will not transform in the movie. Perhaps it's going to be like Scorponok from the first film - the toy has a robot mode, but the character in the movie does not.

However it pans out, this toy is said to be a Triple Changer - that's right, three modes. Sadly, the difference between two of them is minimal, and achieved by locking panels together in a slightly different configuration.